


Extra Lamplight

by Nenalata



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: A bit of steam, Awkward Flirting, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Crushes, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Family Issues, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Not The Good Ones, Only A Little Though It's Okay It's Fine, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Stress Baking, Yep They're There They're Always There, it's not like i like you or anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:00:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21626467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenalata/pseuds/Nenalata
Summary: No, Felix Hugo Fraldarius is far from immune to emotions. Glenn's death made him feel emotions. Dimitri's childlike laughter on the battlefield made him feel emotions."I knew I should have been singing about bears! Or swamp beasties!"Annette's voice makes him feel emotions.Felix has also gotten good atcompartmentalizingemotions, setting them aside, dealing with them later, and later, and later. But if "later" didn't exist for Glenn, for Dimitri..."later" definitely doesn't exist in wartime. What a shame those "emotions" still do.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 87
Kudos: 399
Collections: Honest Reasons to Fight





	1. Too Late to Help

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asnailbee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asnailbee/gifts).



> An overdue birthday present for asnailbee that is still overdue and had to be divvied into three parts!!! First time doing a real Felannie fic. I hope I did these kids the justice Glenn Fraldarius never quite got.
> 
> Always happy to hear your thoughts! And by "always happy to" I mean "i would love 2"
> 
> Follow me on twitter [@NenalataWrites](https://twitter.com/NenalataWrites) to keep up with all my rambles about my work and pretend I don't have a main account!

~1~

“I’m not coming.”

His father paused on the drawbridge. He always crossed it on foot, not with the rest of his personal guard on horseback. It meant Felix could stay rooted to the spot, on the cobblestones, in the _city_ , and he didn’t even have to shout his refusal after a retreating horse.

Father always said taking these final steps to the palace without his horse sent a symbolic message. Felix always thought the ‘message’ was ‘stupid.’

“Felix,” his father began with a weary sigh evident in his voice. In the way he pronounced his son’s name.

The _one_ son’s name.

But Father didn’t continue the sentence, maybe hoping it was meaningful enough on its own. Felix wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Either his father could move along, or explain himself, but if he didn’t do either in the next thirty seconds, _he_ was going to turn around and—

“This is unbecoming of you.”

“Of _me_?” Felix’s voice took that awful moment to crack, something that had happened less and less the more years past _thirteen_ he survived. “Have you—you’re going to drag me into that _animal pen_ —”

“ _Felix_ —”

“—and _I’m_ the one being unbecoming? When I wasn’t…when _he_ was the one who…”

Dimitri’s grinning face glistening red flashed through his mind’s eye, and Felix shut up in favor of shuddering. “I’m not coming,” he repeated, but this time, he turned on his heel and escaped. Back onto the path to Fhirdiad’s main gates. Back into civilization.

Backing away from where the _boar prince_ nested.

No one else in Fhirdiad seemed to have received the missive that Felix Hugo Fraldarius, sole heir to the noble House Fraldarius, was in a terrible mood and wanted to be left alone, not nudged, not _looked_ at. Merchants grumbled when he barreled down the street, refusing to get out of his way. Girls perched on narrow city stairs whispered and giggled. Felix tore off the leather strip keeping his hair in check and let it fall, obscuring his face flushed with anger and embarrassment. Students from the prestigious universities and School of Sorcery tried to thrust pamphlets for events into his unwilling hands.

“Bother someone who cares,” he finally snapped at one, a freckled boy who couldn’t be older than—

 _Thirteen_.

The kid slumped in his blue robes, and Felix refused to feel ashamed.

He stormed off instead, no clear destination in mind beyond _away_. Some other students nearby had come to console the pushy kid. Murmuring, placating voices floated Felix’s way, and no matter how many twisting corners he rounded of the suddenly-unfamiliar Fhirdiad streets, the condescending consolations followed.

“Well, you point him out if he dares to show _his_ face again!” an energetic, earnest voice said to—the kid, not to Felix, but _about_ Felix. “I’ll…I’ll throw him into the swamp!”

“The…the swamp? What swamp?” It wasn’t the boy, but an amused, breathier voice. Two girls. The palace loomed ahead again, and Felix spun around.

He’d never felt so _lost_.

“I’ll find a swamp, okay? Or we’ll all get together and magic one up! Feed him to the beasties!”

“You’re adorable.”

A blacksmith’s hammer _clanged_ somewhere to the left, and Felix followed the source of the sound with such intense gratitude it frightened him.

Familiar: anvils and flames. Iron, steel, silver. Pommels for striking, for defense, for a last-resort. Finding the weaknesses in the forging, faking them if necessary, haggling down the cost.

_“Guess you could say Faerghus blacksmiths really…make a killing, huh?” Sylvain had put his hands on his hips, a huge, lame smirk on his face, like he was waiting for applause. He got a half-hearted Ingrid-sized punch instead and a whole-hearted Felix-sized scoff. And a hilariously useless—_

_“I don’t get it.”_

_“Yeah, well,_ you’re _killing_ me _, Dimitri—”_

Felix tested every single pointy-edged weapon the blacksmith had until the woman snapped at him to buy, not try.

~2~

Sprawling Garreg Mach wasn’t big enough to avoid the boar. Especially since someone had thought it wise to give the thing free reign over the entire Faerghus-based Blue Lions House as its leader this year.

There wasn’t a place Felix could go where he knew he’d be free of it. No matter where he trained—the Knights’ Hall, the training grounds, a lonely battlement far from the dorms—the boar was either there first or not far behind, snuffling its way on Felix’s tracks. It seemed to know his mind as well as he did, like when they’d—like when _Felix_ had been a child, and it was so…so repulsive, so…

 _Unfair_.

He’d never tell either of them, but having Ingrid and Sylvain there to act as a buffer made things easier. Sylvain hadn’t admitted it, laughing it off as being “a clueless good-for-nothing,” but he’d waited to enroll in the Officers Academy until the three of them had. And Felix would have to be an even _more_ clueless good-for-nothing not to notice him deftly distracting the boar, Ingrid, or even Felix himself when tensions grew too high.

And the fact his most frequent diversion tactic was to bring _women_ into the conversation somehow—strolling by more often than not with a giggling girl by his side ready to be _introduced_ —pissed Felix off. Sylvain had chosen the two people most unlikely to be swayed by such tactics, and such cheerful interruptions often ended with him on the receiving end of either a loquacious lecture (Dimitri, or Ingrid, if she was present) or a sharp blade (Felix).

It wasn’t really like Felix had come to the Officers Academy with the expectation or desire to make friends. But with half his house too close to him or to the _boar_ , even he recognized the necessity of befriending (almost) everyone else.

Despite Ashe’s insistence he read frilly, idealistic novels. Despite the fact Felix _read_ them for whatever reason.

Despite Mercedes’s coddling and tea parties. Despite the fact Felix kept _attending_ them.

Despite…

Annette was just so _energetic_.

When they’d met on the first day of school, Annette had started passing out candy to her new classmates. “Who doesn’t like sweets, right?” she’d chirped obliviously when Sylvain had thanked her too earnestly to be genuine.

Sylvain and Ingrid shot him twin dramatic eyerolls.

“Leave off,” Felix glared back at them. “I’m not a festival attraction.”

The tiny girl had gasped like an actress onstage. Felix was prepared to whirl his glare on her, too, waiting for her to repeat something to the effect of, “ _You_ don’t like _sweets_?” or other obvious observations.

But, “I’m so sorry,” she said, and her apology sounded earnest in the way Sylvain never managed to convey. “That was kind of rude of me, huh? Of course everyone has their own likes and dislikes!”

Felix furrowed his brow. “Why would it be rude? You didn’t know.”

Annette just bobbed her head in an emphatic nod. “Exactly! I should know these things. That’s it,” she decided, pointing at him. Felix recoiled from the accusing finger and wished he could tell his childhood friends he could _hear_ them smirking. “I’m going to make sure this doesn’t happen again! I’ll learn _everyone’s_ favorite things.”

Mercedes beamed and squeezed her until they both turned red in the cheeks. “That’s my sweet Annie!”

“Heehee! I wonder who’s savory? Or spicy? Or—”

Now Felix did slap Sylvain on the back of the head. “You’re disgusting.”

“I didn’t even _say_ —”

“Hear that, Felix?” Ingrid whispered while the Chipper Trio of Ashe, Mercedes, and Annette merrily bounced around. “I guess that makes you _spicy_.”

The only reason Felix didn’t hit Ingrid was because she would definitely hit him back. And maybe because Annette had taken that moment to beam at the three of them, and he did _not_ want her asking why the two of them were trading blows.

He did hit Sylvain again, though. Partially because he had lit up when Ingrid had made what _Sylvain_ had assumed was a dirty joke, and partially because no one would question why Felix’s face was red if he was punching Sylvain at the same time.

~3~

“Going to class when it’s raining can be so dreary,” Mercedes sighed in front of him. “I could hardly pull myself out of bed today.”

“It’s much cozier when you’re all bundled up inside, right?” Annette agreed. “There’s really nothing like curling up by the fireplace with a good book, right?”

Ingrid, on the other side of the room, brightened and called, “Are you reading anything good right now?”

“Hm? Oh! Well, I’ve been studying more than _reading_ lately, but…”

Felix’s eyebrow twitched.

“A little leisure reading’s good once in a while, right?” Ashe had joined the conversation. “I just borrowed the second _Horsebow and Crescent_ book, and I’ve just gotten to the part where—”

“Don’t spoil it! Maybe I’ll read it! I don’t know anything about the—”

Steel glittered in the corner of Felix’s eye, and he leapt out of his seat, fumbling for his sword under the desk. He wasn’t the only one: Dedue had positioned himself in front of the boar prince like the guard dog he was, and Ashe’s hand flew to his belt for a dagger that wasn’t there.

Their new professor stood in the doorway of the classroom, shaking raindrops off his sword with nary a care for the weapon’s proximity to his students’ faces.

“Good morning.”

“Good—good morning, Professor,” Annette stammered, and the rest of them followed suit.

It wasn’t his dry, even voice that made the man seem inhuman.

It was the way his expression didn’t even _change_ when he shook out his hair and said behind the messy, damp locks, “Did I scare you to tears? There’s not a dry eye in the place.”

Confusion smothered the formerly-high energy in the classroom like ashes.

And then the boar _laughed_.

It echoed against the stones, as familiar a sound to Felix as his memory of Glenn’s last farewell.

“I’m sorry,” it choked out, flushing with embarrassment. It covered its snout with its gloved hands, like that could stopper the laugh. “I’m sorry, it’s just—because we’re all sopping wet, and—”

“We get it, your Highness.”

Somehow, Sylvain always managed to make that title more irreverent than anything Felix had ever called—it. So it shut up, the Professor thanked it for appreciating his sense of humor—‘humor,’ despite that blank expression—and Felix learned how to strike charging pegasus riders from the air with a sword.

~4~

“Oh! Hi, Felix. What are you doing here so late?”

Felix lifted his head from where he was stabbing his quill into paper to see Annette peering at him closer than the late hour necessitated. A lit lamp dangled dangerously between her fingers and a book was nestled in the crook of her arm. A disaster waiting to happen. He averted his eyes.

“I’m studying.”

“Studying?” Annette set the lamp down on the library desk and glanced at the book that had been torturing him for hours. “Oh, this is for your certification test this week, is it?”

She was nearer than she needed to be. “I’m surprised you remember.”

“Of course I do. I told you I was going to learn everyone’s interests!” She smiled brighter than the lamp and pulled a chair next to him, completely uninvited. Maybe it was his exhaustion, but Felix didn’t have the energy to tell her to move.

“Oh? And that means memorizing everyone’s exam schedules?”

For some inexplicable reason, Annette fidgeted and—blushed? “Well, not _everyone’s_ ,” she mumbled. “But it’s pretty easy to tell with you! You’re always going on and on about swordplay.”

The comment rankled him, even if it was true.

But no one ever accused Felix of being _easy to read_.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Changing the subject was easier than dwelling too much on any of _that_.

Annette hummed thoughtfully. She pillowed her arms on the table and rested her chin on them. “I was trying to take Ashe’s advice and pick a book. Something fun to read.”

Felix snorted and retraced a few squiggles on his parchment. “Take Ashe’s advice with a grain of salt.”

She giggled. “’Salt.’ You’re funny.”

“Funny? What?”

Annette nodded into her arms, small smile still curling the edges of her lips.

Felix glanced away. He was _weird_ , he’d been looking at her lips for no reason, he was fatigued—

“Because, you know. Mercedes. The other day, with the…” Her voice trailed off uncertainly. “Oh. Oh, whoops! There was a little _incident_ with the spices the other day is all.”

He snorted again, but it was dangerously close to a laugh. “I see. I don’t do ‘funny,’ anyway.”

“I’m sure you could if you tried.” She shuffled closer, and he tensed. “Are you okay? Your notes are pretty…uh. Squiggly.”

“I’m fine.”

His notes were indeed more squiggle than sense.

“Okay, but if you need, um, help, or—”

“I don’t need _help_.” Felix heard her quick intake of breath, and he repeated more calmly, “I don’t need help. I know these terms like the back of my hand.”

Annette got up, and he let out a sigh he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. He returned to his book, rereading the same lines on weapon materials. So engrossed was he in being bored out of his skull that he _jumped_ when Annette plopped back down, this time with a second, familiar book.

“Why are _you_ reading _my_ book?”

She huffed and turned to the same page he was on, casting obvious, furtive glances at his book and flipping to catch up. “It’s not _your_ book. It’s the library’s.”

“Yes, yes. That’s not my point,” Felix glared. “None of this is useful to you.”

“You’re so rude!” she jabbed her finger at the same spot his quill lay on and pretended to start reading. “All knowledge is useful! You should give magic a shot sometime.”

“Unlikely.” Felix watched her scan the pages with convincing determination. He sighed and picked up his quill. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Doing? What? I’m not doing anything. I’m learning sword stuff.”

“’Sword stuff,’” he repeated, shaking his head. “You won’t learn how to swing a sword from a book.”

“Then I suppose you’ll have to teach me,” she chirped back. “We can quiz each other when the lamp’s burned down to _this_ line, okay? See who will _really_ be ready for a certification test!”

Competition, however transparent its method, always did motivate him. Felix forced himself back to his books, one eye on the lamp and one on his neater notes. If Annette managed to get more answers right than him when their time was up, he’d never forgive himself.

Felix wasn’t sure how he felt being so transparent, himself. Even if only one person seemed to think so.

~5~

Annette, however…

If Felix was as transparent as the greenhouse glass, she was as opaque as the brass watering can she’d flung at him before running away.

_“You’re evil, Felix!”_

Well, she wasn’t the first to think so, he reflected gloomily, refilling the watering can. If he couldn’t even compliment a pretty girl on her singing and dancing without messing up his words, well…maybe everyone else was right to find him emotionless and cold.

“I guess I’d better start watering before the flowers start singing at me, too,” he mumbled, hefting the can. “Why am I even talking to—”

Water sloshed onto the tips of his boots, and he yelped an embarrassing little curse. He glanced around, feeling his ears get warm, but nobody had seen him pour the contents of the watering can on his own feet, because he’d realized he’d thought—

 _Pretty_.

A _pretty_ girl.

~6~

“Now, _that’s_ quite the look.”

“Go away, Sylvain.”

Sylvain did not go away. Of course not. No, he only sprawled out further on the freshly-trimmed lawn, dangerously close to where Felix was doing his best to trample the grass with new fencing footwork.

She’d kind of moved like _this_ and then…

“She’s gonna notice you staring, man. And… _thrusting your sword_ at her.”

Felix whipped around, sword included. “ _What_?”

Sylvain’s grin did not appear deterred by the blunted training sword aimed at his face. “You’re kind of…ogling Annette, you know. Is that what your House does, like, the time-honored Fraldarius mating dance—”

Felix’s mind went white. “I’m not—shut—what, _no_!”

If he were to slash at Sylvain, it would only encourage him, but yelling would attract attention. Annette, jabbering happily with Hilda and Ignatz outside the Golden Deer classroom, would undoubtedly be interested in the commotion, and Felix was in no mood to explain away yet another of Sylvain’s stupid _misunderstandings_.

“Oh, boy. I’m not misunderstanding anything, I can tell.” That _stupid_ satisfied grin. “You’re like a spooked bunny!”

Felix scowled, and Sylvain, to his surprise, backed off and held up his hands in premature surrender.

Backed off a _bit_.

“You know, your success rate’s gonna be higher if you _talk_ to the girl.”

Felix threw his sword down and sat across from his friend. Loathe as he was to give even an inch to the taunting _concept_ of feeling… _feelings_ to An—another person, it was worse to ignore the guy. “I don’t need a success rate.”

“Oh-ho! Confidence! Ladies love confidence. More so than your mating dance—”

“Stop it!”

Sylvain did not stop it, because apparently Felix not being firm enough in his dismissal of this stupidity meant he could _continue_. “What, House Fraldarius is doing great for itself! Each of the Ten Elites, in addition to passing down their Crest, also passed down a—”

“You love to hear yourself talk, don’t you?”

“—beautiful, loving, _sensual_ dance to find their perfect mates, and—oh! House Fraldarius’s was certainly a sight to behold! Now, the Gautier mating dance is a little more refined, but,” a _lecherous_ wink, “but did your dear old dad not show you the moves? Keeping with the family—”

“He must’ve taught it to Glenn and forgotten about me.”

Goddess. _Finally_ Sylvain shut up.

And Felix sure hated that he had to drag a corpse out of its grave to get some peace and quiet.

“You don’t need to pull that shit,” Sylvain muttered. An unfathomable undercurrent to the words sent anger spiking through Felix’s spine.

“I _told_ you to stop.”

It was true. Not that Sylvain looked in a mood to admit it.

“Sorry,” Sylvain said instead. The air between them darkened. He rose, stretched languidly, and ruffled his hair so it went back to roguishly, seductively tousled. Felix hated him hard and sharp for one cold moment. “I’m gonna go find a girl to grab a drink with. You can…”

Felix waited. _Dared_ him.

“…have a good day. You can do that.”

Sylvain was off, cheerfully accosted by a girl pretty much the second he left the lawn, and Felix was left in the grass with a wooden sword. Awfully familiar.

He pushed himself to his feet and redid his hairtie to give his hands something to do. When he parted the long dark locks of his hair, he realized Annette and Ignatz were nowhere to be found, but Hilda had just averted her gaze, like she’d been staring at him, too.

~7~

When Annette knocked on his door to tell her she’d done his chores, Felix had been startled by how quickly his heart had leapt to his throat. But her sugary-sweetness was suspicious in itself, and when the reason for her bribery became apparent, his heart sank back to normal.

Bleeding Saints, what had he even been hoping for?

She’d been so nice to him the last few days. It was little things at first—passing him another inkpot before he’d even realized his was empty mid-seminar; passing around more candies to the class and a piece of spiced jerky for him—but the stables, the cooking, the…offer of dinner—

Sylvain would have _killed him_ for turning down the offer. But Felix was still pretty pissed at him anyway, so he’d return the favor even if he _didn’t_ share that information. Ingrid assumed they were in one of their usual spats—which was true—and didn’t feel the need to intervene—which was appreciated but also isolating. And the boar kept nosing around hopefully, as if Felix would throw a scrap of friendship its way out of sheer, lonely desperation.

Well. Again. No one had ever accused Felix of being nice. He’d tried, and he’d failed, and it turned out he wasn’t even someone people could be _genuinely_ nice to _back_. It wasn’t worth the effort.

Moping wasn’t what Felix did, however. Annette could claim all she liked he’d obsess over making her miserable, when in truth he was more focused on not feeling miserable, himself. But at least she’d unwittingly helped make that easier, even though her kindness had amounted to nothing.

She had ridiculous bullies stuck in her head. He had her ridiculous songs stuck in his.

~8~

“I hate seeing him like this, too. But you need to lay off.”

Ingrid was the voice of reason, as always, and it wouldn’t have pissed Felix off so much if her eyes didn’t look so big, wide and solemn whenever she lectured him about pestering Sylvain.

Sylvain, who was _not_ moping in the classical definition, but Sylvain-style moping where he pretended everything was fine, normal, stop _bothering_ me, seriously, as if Sylvain hadn’t felt his own awful brother’s blood trickle from his chest down a school-issue lance to stain his uniform not two weeks past.

Felix jerked away from Ingrid’s half-extended arm. “I’m not _doing_ anything. And you know just as well as I do—”

“I know _better_ than you do.” Her voice was firm, uncompromising. “And yes, we all know he’s the least capable of working through emotions out of any of us.”

Probably not true, but the fact that it was difficult to guess didn’t say good things about the four of them.

Ingrid’s features softened. “But the least we can do is just…give him support. In the ways we _normally_ do,” she spoke over him when he started to object. “Sylvain likes pretending everything’s fine. So let’s pretend everything is fine…except we, you know. Go a little easier on him.”

Sylvain wouldn’t want to be coddled. Of that, Felix was sure. But he agreed, because it was easier than convincing Ingrid her strong concepts of virtue, kindness, and righteousness were, perhaps, misguided when it came to their idiot best friend.

No one seemed to have given this memo, however, to the rest of their House. To the people who didn’t know him.

Felix found Annette in the training hall frantically tossing buckets of water onto a flaming practice dummy. She caught sight of him in instants. “Felix! Help me!”

He was already on his way to the closest bucket—it said bad things she’d prepared several already—and between the two of them, the fire was doused not long after.

“That was foolish,” he chided her the second the ashes cooled properly.

She only scowled. “It wasn’t foolish! Look how many buckets I had! We still have two left over, see?”

“Why did you think you needed them at all? Aren’t you supposed to be good at magic?” He toed the closest bucket. “And you were _alone_.”

The scowl deepened. “I would have had company if Sylvain had shown up! Like he promised! And after _all_ that talk about _not holding back_. Urgh, he makes me so mad sometimes!”

Felix’s toe froze on the metal bucket. “Sylvain was supposed to train with you?”

Annette nodded miserably. “I thought I’d finally…talked him into it, you know? He’s been smiling so much colder lately, since…you know.”

He did.

“Mercie said I was _bothering_ him.”

Felix huffed a laugh. “Mercedes did not say that.”

“Okay, well…fine, no, she didn’t say _bothering_. But something way too kind and just—gah!” She folded her arms and glared at the dust, like it was to blame for Sylvain’s broken promises and broken smile. “She wouldn’t tell me anything. I know she talked to him about…you know, _it_.”

“It’s not her place to spill secrets.”

But even Felix felt a surprising stab of jealousy. What, Sylvain would tell Mercedes all the _feelings_ he was keeping bottled up, but not breathe a word to the people who’d known him longest and best?

Maybe that was why he hadn’t. But it stung all the same.

Annette groaned. “I know that, _Felix_. But she also won’t tell me what I’m supposed to do, if I’m bothering him, if I…if I can help.”

 _Help_.

And clarity cooled Felix’s annoyance. “You can’t help,” he told her.

Annette reeled back and put a hand to her chest, and for an instant, Felix felt bad. “I can’t…what?”

“You’re not Sylvain’s family. I mean, they won’t help, either,” he scoffed, “but you don’t know what it’s like to lose a brother.”

_They couldn’t even bury a whole body. There was hardly a body to burn, much less bury._

_“This will finally be over,” Glenn had said, flicking Felix’s forehead with that soft smile he never showed anyone, not even Dima. “One quick trip, and the whole world will change. I’ll be back in a whole different Fódlan! You can wait for history, kid.”_

_“I’m not a kid! Stop_ calling _me that.”_

_Glenn came back, and the world was different. And Felix certainly had stopped being a kid._

“I may not have lost a brother, but I’ve lost family, too,” Annette said quietly. She bent her head, wringing her hands, and before Felix could figure out how to school his expression, she continued, “And I know it’s really lonely no matter what.”

Words Felix never had said and never would say again poured from his dry throat. “It is lonely,” he admitted. “But you learn a lot about yourself when you spend time alone.”

Annette nodded. She didn’t pry. And for that alone, Felix—

“Well, we’ll be here when he’s done feeling lonely,” she sighed. “I guess that’s the best we can show, huh?”

Her smile hurt to look at. It was too fake, too sad, and Felix wasn’t sure he recognized her. “I guess, yeah.”

He helped her clean up the buckets and sweep the ashes. They didn’t talk about it again. Sylvain didn’t, either.

~9~

For such an expensive academy, Garreg Mach didn’t offer many options for dressing up. The ball was the rare occasion, and even that dress code was rather strictly limited to monastery-standard formal uniforms. Even the Blue Lions Professor looked sulky in an Officers Academy cloak, buttoned suit, and strange little cap. Felix thought he was drinking a little too much to be befitting of a holy institution and said so to Sylvain to make him laugh. It worked.

What also worked, to his unpleasant surprise, was the monastery-standard formal uniform on _Annette_.

“Cute, huh?” Sylvain gestured with his own wineglass at her. Somehow, even the uniform didn’t look fantastic on _him_. It hadn’t stopped him from getting bombarded with shy dance invitations, but Felix admittedly was waiting for some girl or another to pour her drink on it when Sylvain dared ask an ex-lover he hadn’t recognized.

“Can you be less obvious?” he hissed. “Besides, control yourself. She’s not even your type!”

Sylvain howled a laugh. “You’re kidding, right? _Women_ are my type!”

“She’s a _girl_. She’s too…nice for you.”

He nodded and took a too-long, too-casual sip. “She is, isn’t she? And probably too busy rubbing it out to the Goddess to think about a _real_ man.”

“What—” Felix blushed and hated himself for it. Sylvain raised his brows.

“Really? You’re gonna get prudish on me now? Should I talk about her _enormous_ breasts instead—”

“People are in earshot,” Felix spat, feeling his own ears heat up. But then—“Wait. They’re not…”

“Enormous? Sure they are.”

Felix’s eyes darted back to her, where she was enthusiastically chattering away with Mercedes. “Oh.” He blinked. “Oh, you were talking about Mercedes.”

“Yes, I was talking about _Mercedes_ , who else would I—” Sylvain followed his line of sight and sputtered a laugh. “Oh, hells. You…you thought I was talking about Annette? Goddess, no! Look, they’re like two cute apple halves. I can barely see ‘em in that uniform. Hardly anyone’s working it, huh?”

Felix could not believe he was humoring Sylvain in such a long conversation about…this. But some strange, gentlemanly instinct took hold of him. “She looks nice,” he defended her. Was this that chivalry Ashe and Ingrid were always going on about? Or just common decency?

It was hard to tell when they talked about it.

“She sure does,” Sylvain granted him, but the lascivious tone in his voice earned him a hard elbow jab to the ribs. “Ow! What gives?”

“Stop.”

“Oh, so I can talk about Mercedes _rubbing one out_ all I want, but the _second_ I politely call Annette’s—”

Sylvain cut himself off, for the first time in his life, and Felix was about to sneer something sarcastic when his friend’s eyes widened with a glee he’d learned to despise and dread.

“You’ve got a _crush_.”

And his blood ran cold.

“I do not,” he said as dismissively as he could. “But I’ll crush _you_.”

Sylvain cackled and tossed back the rest of his wine. “Hey, no shame in it, man. Two cute kids being cute together…Hell, I won’t stop you. I’ll even back off, give you this one.”

“ _Give_ me this—” Felix snarled, reaching for his sword, and—Fuck. It wasn’t there. The stupid belt of this formal attire didn’t even have a place to _tie_ a sheathe. “And ‘back off?’ You weren’t…you weren’t—”

Sylvain’s eyes gleamed with cruel, mocking delight. “Oh, defensive, are we? Thought you had some competition?”

“I don’t—I don’t need to compete because I don’t feel anything. She’s a—”

Friend.

“Got it, I got it. Thanks for the blessing. I’ll keep flirting, then—Felix, what the _fuck_ , I’m done, stop, let go of my wrist!”

Felix would throw a drink on Sylvain’s uniform himself. The spurned girlfriends were taking too damned long.

~10~

There was freshly-baked bread for the entire first week of the new month waiting each day in their classroom. First, a regular farmer’s loaf. Then seeded rye. Then a basket of beautifully-braided soft rolls.

Felix found Annette kneading the dough for the next day’s batch when he stealthily made his way into the kitchens after a late-night training session left him peckish. She jumped when his fingers snaked out to steal a pinch of salt for his also-stolen jerky.

“Felix! Don’t scare me like that!”

“Didn’t mean to.” He tore off a hunk of meat and said through a mouthful, “Were you expecting the Professor to eat this, too? I thought you’d learned you couldn’t help everyone.”

Annette sighed and punched the dough a few more times. A little harder than necessary, maybe, but Felix didn’t know enough about baking to be sure. “Easier said than done, I guess.” She folded the dough over and placed it in an empty bowl. “Can you please hand me that rag?”

Felix handed her the dish towel, which she used to cover the bowl, and he helped her place it on the pantry shelves to let rise.

“Will you sit with me? Just for a little.”

“Sure.”

He’d meant to say ‘no.’ But he found himself sitting on the cold tiles anyway, silently tearing off pieces of jerky. He didn’t offer her any, knowing it wasn’t Annette’s taste, but it felt…odd not doing so anyway.

Annette tucked her knees to her chin and wrapped her arms around them. “I hate feeling so powerless, you know? The Professor’s always so good at taking one look at someone’s face and knowing when they’re feeling a certain way.”

“Strange skill, for a man who never changes his own face.”

Annette cracked a shy smile, and the sight of it sent Felix’s heartbeat into overdrive. He shoved another too-big piece of jerky into his mouth to hide his flush.

 _Stupid_.

“I suppose hiding his face like this,” he said once he swallowed and the heat that was _not_ a blush had receded from his cheeks, “makes it easier for him to mourn. It’s cowardly. Professor Hanneman’s been leading the class for too long, and the man can barely swing a sword without breaking.”

Annette spoke into her hands, muffled enough he couldn’t hear her at first.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said, hiding away’s normal, right? When I lost my father, I didn’t want to leave my room for ages.” She sighed, and before Felix could try to eat his words, she added, “I mean, he didn’t _die_. And I was young. But it makes sense to me.”

What had Felix done when Glenn had died?

 _He’d sought out Dimitri_.

Felix shook himself. Changed the subject. Couldn’t even offer her _sympathy_. “You’re still young, aren’t you?”

“Felix! Don’t tease me!”

“You still look like a baby.”

“Stop it!” She threw a ball of unused dough from the floor and he ducked, feeling it whizz just past where his forehead had been. He heard it splat behind him, relieved it hadn’t gotten caught in his hair. He was still sweaty from training and needed a bath, but who knew how long it would take to untangle dough from his ponytail?

He grinned at her. In the darkness, it almost looked like her cheeks had colored at the sight, and he didn’t blame her for being mad at his teasing. “You make pretty good bread, though.”

Annette sighed and scooted closer, like she was seeking warmth. And yes, the kitchen tiles were cold, so while Felix didn’t let their knees touch, he also didn’t shift away. “I bake when I’m stressed,” she admitted. “I’m probably helping me more than anyone else.”

~11~

Felix hit the training dummy even harder, and its head popped clean off. He focused more on that, on the straw— _like hair, blond like the boar’s_ —than Annette berating him.

“He wasn’t like this before he knew it was Edelgard, okay? And you’re…you’re being mean, trying to turn all of us against him like this.”

Felix scoffed, tuning back into her _ignorant_ lecture. “Turn you against the boar? I haven’t done anything new besides prove I’m _right_.”

“That’s exactly what I mean!”

He shook his head, kicked the post of the training dummy, and went to go find another. “If you’re viewing the boar differently after that _tantrum_ down there, then that’s its doing. Not mine.”

“Felix, you’re so mean.” Annette sounded close to tears, eloquence failing her, and Felix couldn’t…couldn’t…

“I am. Never pretended otherwise.”

He didn’t know why it hurt to hear her say it, when she’d called him evil before, when she’d sworn to hate him _forever and ever_ , when she’d said he teased her too much.

But she was right.

And he hated that she’d finally come to understand.

“This isn’t like you,” she said decidedly, and Felix _flinched_. He whirled on her, ready to prove her wrong, ready to insist no, she was right, he was _mean_ and he was _unfeeling_ and _emotionless_ and everything else everyone said he was despite the fact he was _not_ , but then she said through visible tears, “you’re being a lot like His Highness right now, beating up all those dummies instead of talking to your friends. Friends who care about you and are there for you. But none of them are him. _You’re_ the dummy, Felix!”

And Annette ran away before he could decipher her words, before he could decide if he was going to let them hurt him.

~12~

Felix didn’t pray much, not as a general rule.

He went to services as needed and waited for them to be over. Sometimes, someone good would be in the afternoon chorus, someone like Dorothea or Ferdinand or Hilda or—

Sometimes.

Praying hadn’t protected Glenn, or his friends, or himself, and he didn’t see any reason why going to the cathedral as the Imperial army marched their way would change their fate at all, but…

Annette was praying in a corner by the Holy Mausoleum, like she didn’t want her prayers to disturb anyone. And Felix clasped his hands in the opposite corner, closing his eyes so he didn’t have to see hers open, see her stare at him.

And even if he wasn’t sure if it was the Goddess he was praying to, or just himself, some future, braver, _stronger_ version of himself…

Felix prayed they would survive long enough for him to…for him to…

For him to be braver. Stronger. Himself.

Someone capable of helping and being helped.


	2. Help Yourself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still overdue because oh no I need to break up the chapters more than I thought! Final installment coming before New Year's~~
> 
> Thank you so very much to [roxyryoko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roxyryoko) for editing! snail does not deserve typos for their birthday.

One year, Felix had always thought, was a long time.

When he was growing up, he hadn’t had enough years to compare them to. One year could be a third, a quarter, a sixth of his life. Those years were long, full of adventure: full of brotherly scuffles and smiles, of cold steel and ribbons on new arrows, of warm jokes and warmer tears with Sylvain and Ingrid and Dimitri and—

And Glenn had died, and Dimi—a rabid _boar_ had tried to drag his memory to hell. And the years had gotten long.

This year, this _school_ was supposed to make things right again. A new place with new people. So what if he was surrounded by people he’d mostly known his entire life? The Blue Lions House was full of Kingdom students; he just had the (mis)fortune to be lumped into the same homeroom cluster as people he had known for too long. As Ingrid, with her grins and her scolding. As Sylvain, with his hollow charm and his protection. As the boar, with its laughter, with its memories of another time.

As Ashe, with his ideals and his daydreaming. As Dedue, with his dry humor and his gardening. As Mercedes, with her teatimes and her fussing. As Annette, with her songs, her dances, her laughter, her refusal to excuse his temper but the only one who could stand it, as—

They were all gone now. Scattered.

Ingrid, staving off famine and poor harvests. Refusing to broker an engagement with the wealthy and powerful Fraldarius Duchy a second time, which was foolish and proud, although Felix confessed to no small amount of selfish, selfish relief.

Sylvain, slicing bloody paths with his Relic through wave after wave of Sreng armies taking advantage of Fódlan politicking. Sending fewer and fewer letters as his father the Margrave Gautier had need of him—or, more likely, drowning his own sorrows in drink and women.

Dimitri, dead. Butchered like a pig, if the rumors had any weight, if not a body.

Felix wished he knew where everyone else was. What they were doing. How safe they were. _If_ they were safe. Surely it wouldn’t be too much trouble to send a letter or two, to brave the taste of Imperial steel just for a word, just for a whisper, just for some _news_ —

No.

He wasn’t so stupid as to risk his neck over something so _sentimental_. As the war raged on and the Professor stayed dead or missing and Imperial platoons vanished in much the same way and the millennium festival drew closer, Felix’s resolve hardened.

 _Dear Felix_ , the letter from Sylvain began, _I know you’re the least stupidly sentimental guy I know, but_ …

They all came to the monastery that day.

Because they were all stupid and sentimental.

Even the Professor, smirking and glowing and strong like a shattered god without fear, next to a _ghost_ , a nightmare, missing an eye like it was missing a heart. Screaming at terrified bandits. A rabid boar roaring at rats.

“I’m glad we’re all okay,” Annette said at the end of it, a little bloodied and a lot out of breath.

“I’m glad you are, too,” Felix said without thinking, and Sylvain howled with laughter next to him while Felix turned as red as their friends’ Relics shielding them from the wild boar prince’s rage.

~14~

“You of all people,” Felix snarled, “can’t accuse me of toying with a girl’s heart.”

Sylvain didn’t even crack a smile. “Just did, actually.”

“She gave me candy. I didn’t want candy. I don’t see how this has anything—”

“Felix,” Sylvain interrupted him. Felix was startled enough to shut up. They were all tired. Everyone looked tired. But when had they all started looking so tired and _old_? “You’re not me. The way you give people the wrong ideas about things? You can’t compare ‘em.”

He glared, but it was more out of habit than any real heat. “I…suppose. What am I supposed to do, then? I…like that store. I don’t want to stop going just because the storekeeper _fancies_ me…”

It was a hobbyists’ store.

Useless in times of war.

The Professor liked to play strategy games with him, though. Tactical stuff, board games requiring thought, careful arrangement of tokens…

They also had a wide array of sheet music. Little instruments, not too expensive. Small flutes, hand harps and the like.

Annette liked to sit and hum and watch the Professor wipe the metaphorical floor with Felix’s poor excuses for game strategy on their rare quiet nights. She always needed new material, and—

“Just tell her there’s someone else.”

Felix jerked back, and Sylvain popped the rejected candy in his mouth. “There’s not—there’s _no one_ else.”

“Oh?” Crunch, crunch. The taunting way Sylvain stared him down while he ate _Felix’s_ candy made Felix want to punch him. “Coulda fooled me. Coulda fooled An—”

“ _We’re friends_.”

“Perfect! Friends bail each other out, right? Just like I did for you.” Sylvain flashed him a sharp but winning smile, the sort he always gave women at the tavern when he’d successfully ensnared them, seduced them, and was about to leave Felix to fend for himself the rest of the night. “Ask Annette. Tell her you need her _help_ covering for you. I just saved your life a second time, buddy.”

Felix glared at him. Crunch, crunch. He wanted to punch that grin off Sylvain’s face. But… “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “But only because you saved my life.”

“Of course.”

 _Punch incoming_.

“So, since you two are _just friends_ , how about you and I go pick up some girls tonig—”

 _Punch delivered_.

~15~

When Felix found Annette covered in flour instead of an apron one late night in the kitchens, long after he was supposed to have left the training grounds and much longer after dinner had ended, he was overcome with uncharacteristic nostalgia.

He tried to make his presence known this time, clomping his boots meaningfully on the stone floor, but they were unfortunately softer shoes meant for everyday use, not battle. He spoke up, hoping not to startle her: “It’s late to be baking, isn’t it?”

Felix startled her. Annette squeaked, tripped over an open crate of sugar, and fell. He moved as quickly as if they were in battle, scooping her up almost into his arms, seconds before she hit her head on the edge of the butcher’s block smeared with dough.

“Felix!”

“Annette.”

He let go, and she stumbled to her feet. She brushed flour off her sullied dress, succeeding only in puffing up white clouds for the both of them to cough on.

“Sorry.”

Felix shook his head. “No need for apologies,” he said, and made his way to the pantry to find some sort of smoked meat to tear into. The supplies from his father had been most welcome. Even Felix wasn’t proud enough to scoff at provisions and reinforcements given out of stubbornly loyal _duty_.

When he returned to the kitchens, Annette was closing the oven door. She offered him a smile that made his heart stutter. “Were you training?”

“Of course. And you were baking?”

“Of course.”

Felix glared. Annette had adopted a deep scowl and voice so unlike her she could only be imitating him. They both glared at each other until she broke and giggled.

“Just some cookies. Want a couple when they’re done? They’re not sweet at all, I promise.”

“No, thanks.” Felix nibbled on his jerky. “I have food already.”

Annette scooted herself onto the butcher block without checking for anything like forgotten knives or rolling pins or whatever besides flour baking required. The flour certainly was there; when she stood up, she would have its dust powdering her—

“Thanks a bunch for coming with us today,” Annette said before his blush had time to form. “Do _not_ tell my father, but I’m glad the Professor brought you and—and everyone else along to my uncle’s.”

Felix smirked around the latest bite. “Don’t worry. I’m good at keeping secrets from fathers.”

His voice was soft in the nighttime, a little raspy from his exertions while training. The second Annette’s cheeks lit up red, some dim warning bell in his mind alerted him he’d sounded sort of like Sylvain, although he couldn’t name why. He cleared his throat.

“It was a smart move, to seek out Crusher. Regardless of what…happened back there. We needed another Relic.”

Annette nodded exuberantly. “Yeah, we did! I’m really happy you think it was smart.” She sighed, and her beaming expression fell. Felix’s chest hurt. “I still don’t think my father was super grateful.”

“Hm.”

Annette kicked her feet lazily against the counter, watching her white boots hit the wood one, two, three, four, five times. “It’s dumb how I actually want him to be impressed, huh?”

Felix snorted and finished the rest of his jerky. “We keep having conversations like this.”

Her head jerked up, and she squinted at him in confusion. “’Keep’ having them?”

He ran a hand though his hair, fiddling with the tie in the back. “I don’t know. Five years ago? You were, there was bread, and—I don’t know,” he said defensively when he saw a small smile growing on her lips, “shut up, stop. I don’t care if you don’t remember.”

“I do,” Annette said, going back to staring at her feet. Kick, kick, kick.

He didn’t have the courage to ask if that meant she did care, or if she did remember.

Two bells resounded through the early darkness outside, and Annette jumped, like she hadn’t been expecting the passage of time to continue. “My cookies!” She shoved herself off the butcher block and—yes, a specifically-shaped imprint of flour on her dress made Felix spin around—opened the oven door. Felix heard the scrape of iron on iron, hand flinching on instinct towards his sword, but kept steady as she removed the baking tray.

“Look, they came out so pretty!” Felix obediently turned—thankfully, she faced him now, flour covering only her front—and joined her to inspect the cookies.

They had, actually. Round, neat little things. Beautifully browned and chock full of—

“Are those dried apples?”

Annette nodded, enthusiastic and pleased he’d noticed. “Fresh, actually. I wanted to keep this a tart kind of sweet. Not _too_ sweet, you know? Dedue told me about this one, and—oh, you probably don’t care,” she finished with a self-deprecating laugh.

Felix looked at her, the way her fingers twisted around and around each other, teeth gnawing at her lip, the shadows under her eyes that hadn’t been there this morning.

 _“I bake when I’m stressed. I’m probably helping me more than anyone else_.”

Felix reached for a cookie. “Maybe I’ll help myself after all.”

Annette, to his surprise, swatted his hand away. He blinked at her, stung in more ways than one. “You’ll burn yourself! And they need to finish cooking on the pan, anyway!”

Felix scowled at her. Well, that was what he got for trying to be _nice_ and _sweet_.

But then Annette fiddled with her dress buttons awkwardly and glanced up at him through the long red strands of her messy half-tied hair. “You could sit with me a while, though. You know. Just until they cool down enough for us to eat.”

He smirked. “Fine, I guess.”

And he didn’t object when she gestured to the flour-covered butcher block and helped her hop on to sit beside him.

~16~

He had the misfortune to run into Ingrid on the way back from the library to the training grounds. She had been on patrol of the second floor when he’d first trudged up here to grab a book—a rare occurrence on its own, but the Professor had suggested a particular diagram folio of sword techniques used by mortal savants—but Felix hadn’t expected her to be changing guards with Petra by the time he was finished listening to— _helping_ Annette clean.

“Headed to the training grounds?” Ingrid asked him, and Felix grunted assent. They descended to the first floor in relative silence, but something was off.

“What are _you_ smiling about?”

“Nothing,” Ingrid smiled. “What are _you_ smiling about?”

“Nothing.”

“Got it.”

“ _Nothing_.”

“I said I got it, Felix.”

She didn’t sound annoyed enough. No, she sounded awfully pleased. It was positively unbearable. Felix stopped in his tracks, and Ingrid nearly bumped into him.

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

“Don’t mock me.” He hoped his voice came out dripping with cold condescension and not petulant whining like he feared. “Spit it out.”

Ingrid bit back another smile, and Felix struggled not to scream. “Okay, fine. I yield. It just seemed like you were having a lot of fun back there.”

“So what if I was?” Felix immediately challenged before he realized what he’d admitted. He hurried to backtrack. “I just—it’s all—who says cleaning isn’t fun?”

 _Fuck_.

Unfortunately, the memory of Annette’s voice didn’t block out Ingrid’s own oblivious chattering. “I never see you look like that anymore.”

He huffed and started off again, maybe setting a little too quick a pace. Damn Ingrid for being too close to his own height, like when they’d been children. “Like what?”

“Happy.”

And just like that, tears prickled at the back of Felix’s throat.

“Hey,” Ingrid said softly. It was late afternoon, not even early evening, not dark enough to hide the way he could feel he’d gone pale, the way the corners of his eyes, his mouth scrunched up. Like a child. _Cute, like a baby brother_.

“Don’t pity me.”

“I know it’s been hard.”

Ingrid stood a respectful distance away. And for one painful, bruising instant, Felix wished she remembered him as someone else. As a child. As a cute baby brother. As someone who cried when his best friends hurt him, as someone who had a brother with a huge shadow, as someone whose loved ones had been torn from his life without warning. As someone who didn’t hate being touched.

Someone who wanted pity.

But she didn’t touch him. Felix was a weapon first and foremost. A few cheerful songs about exploding libraries with a girl Felix worried he…he… _liked_ more than…more than his friends, more than _friends_ …

It didn’t change that.

“It’s been hard for all of us,” he said gruffly, and the tears dried up. “We’ll all get through it.”

 _Together_ , he didn’t say. But Ingrid smiled again, and even if it was a little watery, it was better than it was before, when she had been teasing him.

~17~

They were training together again, Linhardt and Annette.

Annette’s healing spells had come along well in the years between the end of the world and the scrabble out of hell, but they weren’t enough to save someone’s life in the heat of battle. She was often delegated to infirmary duty _after_ the battles had been won or lost. Linhardt was relieved, since it meant he could spend more time away from blood and more time doing…whatever he did other than nap or fish.

Maybe he didn’t.

Regardless of Linhardt’s wishes, however, they needed more war medics. Mercedes couldn’t run fast and it wasn’t usually safe for Sylvain to let her sit behind him on horseback while he swung his very long, very dangerous lance around. And the priests were newer to combat than made them entirely reliable, the Professor admitted to Felix in confidence.

And Annette being Annette, she’d picked up on it well before the Professor talked to her, asked her to brush up on her white magic skills. No, Felix and the Professor had stumbled upon Annette and Linhardt slouching and sitting in the sawdust-filled corner of the training halls.

Something terrible and sharp and fearful had stabbed through Felix’s gut seeing Linhardt cautiously, surgically slicing an even line through the skin of Annette’s arm. But it was indeed one of the only ways to practice healing magic.

Annette had waved at the two of them with a big grin on her face, pride in her smile when she sealed up the wound in seconds. Still too long, but her satisfaction in the simple task was contagious. Felix almost forgot the terror and fury he’d felt at the sight of Adrestian Linhardt von Hevring with a blade to Annette’s flesh.

Almost.

“She should be working on her axe skills, too,” Felix remarked, shoving Sylvain’s own blunted hand axe off his training rapier’s edge. He was only a little out of breath, as was Sylvain. Good—the idiot was finally taking his training seriously.

“You know we need her with the healers.” Sylvain spiked, and Felix flicked the attacking weapon up and away with relative ease.

He loved his rapier. He was getting good at using one.

“She’s probably the only one who could defend them if the battalion gets attacked, and white magic spells don’t stop a Beast as fast,” Felix argued. He leaped away from Sylvain’s next swing, but didn’t miss the way his friend rolled his eyes. No wonder Sylvain’s aim had been off.

“Saints help you, Felix. You really sound like a jealous schoolboy.”

Felix stopped in his tracks, and only years of training and experience overcame his shock and let him parry Sylvain’s follow-up strike.

“I’m not jealous.”

“Oh, for all the—” Sylvain hit _hard_ , and Felix’s rapier went flying. It clattered off to the side, distracting the other soldiers, but not the little mages cozying up in the corner.

“Have you been going easy on me this whole time?” Felix accused him. Sylvain rolled his eyes again.

“Yep. That’s not the point. My point is, it’s _painful_ watching this, pal.”

“It is the point. What’s the _point_ of training if you hold back? Shouldn’t you want me to improve—”

Sylvain laughed so genuinely and condescendingly that Felix felt ten years old again. Ten and clueless why his thirteen-year-old best friend had started taking joy in calling Ingrid _pretty_ , the _prettiest little duchess_ in front of a furious Glenn. “You want me to stop pulling punches? Okay, Felix. Let’s start here. You’re being such an idiot about a _girl_ that I won’t ever be able to take you seriously if you start giving me shit again for _my_ girl idiocies.”

“You already don’t.”

“You see that?” Sylvain nodded at the corner again, but Felix didn’t need to look to hear the lazy, drawling conversation, the bubbly, teasing nagging. “Honestly, really says something about how much work you put into your relationships if you’re gonna let _Linhardt_ of all people make a move first.”

“ _What_?” Felix’s voice cracked like it hadn’t in years, and started to whirl around before the flat of Sylvain’s training axe on his cheek kept him in place.

“Subtlety, buddy. Not your forte, I know.”

“He’s _not_ —”

“No, he’s not right now. Relax. But maybe he _will_.” Sylvain withdrew. The amused pity in his expression was unbearable. “I’m not saying you two should fuck and get it out of your system for _my_ comfort. Well, maybe a little.”

Felix turned bright red and hated that he felt it. Hated that he could _imagine_ it, shoving Linhardt aside, knocking the dagger from his limp grip, straddling Annette’s hips, _don’t you know how much I’ve dreamt of your voice, don’t you know how I wake up wanting you_ —

“You could die tomorrow, Felix. Your magic-y honeybunch could die tomorrow.”

Well.

That was one way to ruin the half-formed fantasy.

Sylvain’s smile was more cold smirk than warm humor. Felix had always hated seeing him like this. “You don’t want to be the type of man who only tells people he loves them at their funerals.”

On another day, Felix would have punched Sylvain in the mouth. Would have given into primal rage and grief, would have launched himself at the only person who’d really been there for him because fighting, not talking, was all he knew how to _do_. Fighting, not talking, when all he’d said back then was _I told you stop calling me a kid_ , all he’d said was _Glenn, stop calling me that, stop talking, stop teasing me_ , and then the calling and talking and teasing stopped forever, and Sylvain had held him while he cried three tears before Felix pushed him away, because Sylvain was crying, too, and Ingrid had vanished, and he hadn’t died with Glenn but he could still die with Ingrid, with Dima, with Sylvain—

 _Maybe he should tell them, too_.

Annette laughed, and the sound alone lit the room in a sparkly light.

Maybe he’d tell his friends another time.

“I don’t know how,” Felix told Sylvain instead. He glanced at the corner again. Annette, for some awful reason, felt his gaze and looked at him, cheeks pink and round. She smiled at him with barely a wince while a repulsed-looking Linhardt leveled the dagger over her collarbone. Felix looked away and hoped he hadn’t hurt her feelings. “How do I…how do I say that to someone?”

Sylvain shrugged, loose, easy, relaxed, and something in Felix’s heart cracked. “Wouldn’t you believe it, but you’re asking the wrong guy.”

~18~

Felix, he realized with the sudden clarity of a man understanding his own mortality for the first time, could listen to Annette sing forever.

He’d heard her singing in the greenhouse and had followed without thinking. Like a trail of musical notes, scattered like treats for a starving beast to follow into a trap. And when she’d caught him behind her, looming like a…like a predator, like a _creep_ , he’d shut down.

But here they were now.

Side by side on the muddy greenhouse floor, Annette singing something he hadn’t heard yet: a bread-baking song.

If he weren’t so on edge thanks to his epiphany, Felix could fall asleep to it.

“Pace the floor and wait some more—the bread’s not proofed enough,” she sang softly. “Bake it in loaves or rolls or bowls—under this roof, we’ll clean the flue—but oh, the dough’s too tough!” He was so still, she must have actually thought he’d fallen asleep. Like a lullaby to soothe someone. To keep someone safe.

“Do you think about that kind of…thing a lot?” Felix asked her. Softly. Annette startled next to him.

“Gah! Felix! I thought you were asleep!”

He snorted, and she buried her face in her hands. “Just answer the question. Seems like your favorite song topic.”

“What does?” Her voice came out muffled behind her fingers. Felix was filled with an overwhelming urge to pull them away, to see her face, the expression on it.

“Ridiculous domesticity. Rather odd for a noble.”

She peeked out between spread fingers like a strange theatrical mask. “It’s not odd.” A single red eyebrow frowned at him above a single blue eye. “Or ridiculous. Baking is just…nice.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Felix couldn’t keep the teasing from his voice, the quirk from his lips, the warmth from his chest.

“ _You’re_ ridiculous!” Annette yanked her hands off her face and poked his vest, and even through the leather and wool, it seared his skin. He batted it aside, but she only poked him with the other finger.

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re ridiculous! Baking’s not ridiculous! It _is_ nice!” She beat her hard little fists against his chest like she could push the laughter from his lungs. It was working, but Felix would much rather hear her voice than his own. He grabbed her tiny fists in his own hands, ending their pathetic onslaught.

“ _You’re_ nice.”

And Annette shut up.

Felix did, too.

Her hands rested limply in his, no longer tugging or wiggling, but he’d—unintentionally, _accidentally_ —pulled her closer—to _defend_ himself, to…to…

Annette swallowed. He could hear it. Her eyes shone blue. She gnawed at her lip, a nervous habit Felix noticed too often she’d never managed to break, and—

He couldn’t be bothered to care that now he was openly looking at her lips.

“You’re nice, too,” she whispered. Her voice was more breath on his jaw than sound in his ears.

No.

He wasn’t.

Felix was not nice.

No one ever dared to think Felix Hugo Fraldarius was nice for one instant.

If Felix were nice, he wouldn’t do what he did next, which was to tug her closer, tilt his head, lean closer, feel her fluttering eyelashes brush his cheek, keep her hands in his, and press his lips to hers.

Chastely.

Perfectly.

_Nicely._

Felix had found something better than her voice.

No, not better, equally good, different, but…

Annette gasped when he released her, yanked her hands free, and before he had time to feel fear, buried her fingers in his hair and pulled him close again.

Of course Annette would be as enthusiastic and thorough in _kissing_ as she was in everything else.

Soft kisses assaulted his lips, almost familial in their briefness were her nails on his scalp not coaxing shivers from his skin and the speed and frequency with which those kisses collided. She missed his lips more often than not, but her happy sighs each time they managed to slant their mouths together properly made up for each taste of her lips far from the mark.

Felix had _no idea_ what he was doing, but Annette didn’t seem to care.

He gathered her in his arms, pulled her into his lap, and the frantic kisses _changed_. Languorous. Deep. Felix sucked on her bottom lip, rolling it between his teeth, eyes trained on her face. Crimson flooded her cheeks in uneven patterns, and when she pulled back, her lower lip was swollen.

Felix didn’t think he’d ever felt so satisfied at the sight of one of his own attacks.

She touched a trembling finger to her mouth, a small smile curling around her fingertip. “Oh, Goddess. I’m sorry, I’m doing _such_ a bad job.”

“Stop,” Felix said flatly on instinct, then shook himself. “No. Don’t stop. Please. Continue. You’re, I, you can…”

How could he tell her?

Annette leaned over him with a shy grin, rubbing their noses together. “Me?”

“—this time of year. It is fortunate the seeds remained intact.”

Felix and Annette froze. Dedue’s voice carried deep and loud from the greenhouse doors.

“Where are they? I’ve never been to Duscur.”

The Professor’s voice. Closer now.

“Here, in this corner, away from the humidity—”

Annette rolled off Felix’s lap with absolutely zero semblance of subtlety. Felix watched in horror as her boot slammed into an empty metal bucket behind the trellis that had, quite unintentionally, served as their hiding spot.

“Who goes there?” the Professor snapped, the harsh sound of two weapons being drawn joining his demand. Annette, for some _stupid_ reason, poked her head with its rumpled-up hair from behind the trellis.

“Hello! Just me!”

“Annette,” Felix heard Dedue say. “Why did you not reply when we entered?”

Now that Felix thought about it, maybe there _had_ been a curious call of greeting echoing in the background of those first heart-pounding moments of her lips on his, his lips on—

“I, um, you know me! I overworked myself weeding the plants. Fell asleep!” Her giggle was so high-pitched and utterly unconvincing Felix cringed, then again when she kicked him. He glared at her back, only to realize the way she was angling her body would provide him with a decent enough cover to make a break for the exit if he was fast.

Felix was _always_ fast.

Annette chattered and danced about while Felix rolled to the side and behind a planter. She held too-fast but eager conversation with a bemused Dedue and suspicious Professor. Felix was out of the stifling-hot greenhouse and into the brisk spring air before he realized he had no idea if he was supposed to wait for her.

So he did.

~19~

It was the most time Felix had spent by the first-floor dorms, and the longest six minutes of his life. By the time Annette joined him, slightly out-of-breath and very red in the face, he was surprised he hadn't paced a trench on the pathway.

"Finally!" she giggled. "Oh, boy. I think the Professor knew something was up. I'm so embarrassed."

 _So embarrassed_.

Felix couldn't quite muster an answering smile, but his fingers twitched.

"Don't be."

And that made her _redder_.

"Do you, uh..." Her sentence broke off, and she looked away. Felix did, too. And the silence that descended upon the two of them was the longest six seconds of his life.

"My room's there if. Um. You know."

 _You know_.

Felix's racing pulse almost obscured the sound of the rest of her other words. "We can, you know. Sit together. Maybe, uh, tea, or..."

_Or._

"It's fine," stupid words poured out of his mouth. "I can just..."

_How do you tell someone something like that?_

"Um. What?"

Her voice...

Felix thought he loved it. Thought he could listen to it forever.

Not like this.

He tried to backtrack, to explain himself, that they could pick things up another time. They could go back to...something else, anything else.

But what was he supposed to do? Pounce on her the next time he saw her? _Ah, yes, Annette, let's go right back to it, huh? Sorry we ended things so suddenly before. I just had the sudden sinking feeling I had done something more impulsive and stupid than I'd ever done in my life, something I didn't want to destroy. I'm better now, though. I crave you. Your taste. Your mess. You._

How could he tell someone something like this?

How could he tell her?

"It's fine," he said again. "I should go train anyway."

He shouldn't.

"Oh." She didn't even smile. Didn't even try to hide her disappointment. "Yeah, uh. If you want. I guess I should go...too?"

A question.

"Hey," Felix said, _stupidly, impulsively_ when she made to hurry back to her room. "I...had a nice time. With you. There." He gestured vaguely to the greenhouse, where Dedue and the Professor still lurked. Suspicious. Intimidating.

He was a _coward_.

A shaky smile made its way to her lips. "You did?"

He nodded, swallowing around the lump in his throat. "It's, um. I like..."

The tips of his ears _burned_.

Annette nodded, nodded, nodded, shy smile growing shyer and brighter with each degree hotter his skin became. "I, uh. I did, too. But...."

"But..."

They smiled like silent fools at each other. It almost hurt. When was the last time he'd smiled so much?

_I never see you look like that anymore. Happy._

"Not when the Professor's around?" Annette piped up, giggles in her voice, red in her cheeks.

"No." One more quirk of his lips. "Not when the Professor's around. I'll see you around, Annette."

Both their gazes went to her room's door, just a few paces away, just a few kisses away, just a few...

"Yeah, uh, see you, Felix!"

He whirled around and marched off. There were so many stairs between him and the training grounds, but not enough—

"Felix!"

Annette's delicate but surprisingly strong hands latched onto his shoulder, and he found himself the victim of a sloppy, happy kiss on his left cheek. "Work hard today!"

And she released him as suddenly as she'd caught him. Pitter-pattering bootsteps skittered away, her door slammed shut, and Felix stood frozen solid as Dedue and the Professor left the Greenhouse. He didn't even flinch when the Professor's gloved hand patted his shoulder. "Nice roll, Felix. Maybe tell your adjutant to be a little quieter next time."

~20~

"You _what_?

Felix buried his head in his hands. "I know."

"You were _four steps from her room_."

"I said I _know_."

Sylvain covered his own face, and Felix could almost hear the scream his friend was trying not to let loose. "And you didn't...you could have saved me, Felix. You're killing me. Your _oldest friend_."

Felix chucked a chess piece at him. He took no small measure of satisfaction in the way it bounced off Sylvain's forehead, but the guy didn't even flinch. "It's not about you, it's about her. Don't be like that."

Sylvain laughed loudly enough Felix glanced around the gazebo, as if the Professor or Annette or Mercedes or the boar or literally anyone they knew was paying attention. No one was. Not even the people they _didn't_ know milling about.

"The Professor, though..." Sylvain sighed when he was done laughing. "I can't believe it. He's always like that, you know? Butting in where he doesn't belong."

Felix would never understand Sylvain's weird rivalry with the Professor when Sylvain had never bothered a rivalry even with _him_. It stung in a strange way, especially since the Professor didn't appear to take it as seriously as he took his training bouts with Felix himself.

Not that Felix would tell Sylvain that. He looked on edge as it was.

"Well. At least you finally worked out some tension." Sylvain picked up the chess piece Felix had assaulted him with and placed it back on the board. Felix was pretty sure it hadn't been there before, but he couldn't quite remember. "We can all sleep a little better for it."

Felix snorted. "Like you're doing much sleeping of your own."

Sylvain didn't even leer. "You know what I mean. We all need to find some sort of real happiness where we can get it. If a mercenary-turned-holy-professor's the rallying force for an entire nation's army, doesn't say much for the King's morale."

Sylvain moved another piece. It would have felt more like a metaphor if he hadn't cheated and moved twice in one turn.

"Are you just playing with yourself now?" Felix scoffed when Sylvain kept shuffling pieces around.

"Do you ever think about what would have happened if Dimitri had died? Or if the Professor hadn't come back, or...or if he hadn't been our House's Professor in the first place?"

It was hard to take Sylvain's somber tone with even a grain of equal sobriety when he was arranging pawns and bishops into the shape of a woman's… _parts_.

"What are you even _doing?"_

"I wonder," Sylvain continued, "if any of us would have come back to the monastery at all. Or if we even would have made that weird promise to come back."

Felix watched the vulva become more detailed with the addition of tea leaf scraps on the table, contemplating. "Is that something _you_ think about a lot?"

"No."

He wasn't sure if Sylvain was telling the truth. But he also wasn't sure if he was lying.

He wasn't even sure of his own thoughts.

"I'm pretty glad we did, though, you know? Live in the moment and all." Levity had returned to Sylvain's tone again, and Felix was relieved when he looked up from the strategic genitalia the game board had become to see that faint, idiotic smile on Sylvain's face again. He was wholly unprepared when Sylvain said, "You remember when I killed my brother?"

Felix's blood turned to ice, but he kept his voice neutral in his response. "Of course."

Miklan had always been an asshole. How much, he hadn't known exactly. But the look in Sylvain's face when he'd dug his axe into his older brother's shoulder, then again, then into the meaty flesh of Miklan's arm where the armor had shattered, then stabbed a lance straight through the beast's eye Miklan had become, then the abdomen, only to find himself crouched over his brother's limp, bleeding corpse...

It wasn't something he forgot easily. Not the same but similar to how he'd never forgotten the rabid joy in the boar's eyes on that terrible battlefield in the last dregs of his childhood.

"You know, it was the first time I remember hugging my brother and liking it." Sylvain's voice was still casual. Cheerful. Conversational. "I can't imagine what it must have been like for you three to see. Me, hugging Miklan. Funny, right?"

He _sounded_ amused.

"Not really." He didn't want to ask what this had to do with Annette. With his feelings. With the war. He did, but even he knew when to stop being selfish. But...

"Maybe not," Sylvain agreed. He finished his artful rendition of a vulva and observed his work with satisfaction. "But I would have gone in for that hug no matter which house I was in, you know? Whichever house took that assignment. Whichever professor got it."

Felix looked away and looked at the stupid game-piece-vagina, too.

"So it's pretty good, I guess, that the Professor and Dimitri are somehow keeping morale high. I don't think I'd have made such a sentimental promise with another house. And it's nice to see my other, cuter brother be happy like this with someone he actually deserves to be sentimental over."

Sylvain's cheerful voice was _too_ cheerful now. Bordering too close on some emotion, something simultaneously manic and morose. The way his eyes glazed over and the sad smile tugged at his lips made Felix want to knock the board game aside and tell him to shut up like he would tell him he cared about him.

 _Like he should tell his friends he loved them_.

"You sound like Ingrid," Felix said instead, unable to think of anything else. And that made Sylvain bark a laugh, a _real_ laugh.

"Wow, feeling really vindictive today," Sylvain accused him, and Felix's shoulders relaxed. "Kick me while I'm down, why don't you?"

"Well, only since you insisted."

If even Sylvain could admit when he was troubled, albeit in his roundabout way, and admit when he was concerned...

Sylvain had always been older than him, mature with his appetites and emotions in ways more dangerous than good. But Felix was an adult now, too.

Emotions were dangerous, but maybe they were better than he thought.

~21~

Why should he care?

Why should he even _care_?

He'd _died like a true knight_. Wasn't that what Felix should say? Shouldn't he use such words to comfort the boar, whose tail had suddenly drooped, tusks withdrawn, meek like a frightened pig for slaughter?

"My entire family's died _for you_ ," he'd snarled instead, and the boar had recoiled, because it was true.

Ingrid, even _Ingrid_ didn't get it. Ingrid, who had loved his brother with maybe more than childlike admiration and had lost part of herself when he'd died. No, Ingrid was now after a different type of meat than they served in the dining hall: boar meat, freshly hunted.

"Don't you _fucking_ say that to me," she'd shouted, voice cracking and color high. Ingrid never swore, and maybe the shock of it would have shut Felix up on another day. But his father was _dead_ and Ingrid was _blushing_ and how dare she tell him to _lay off His Majesty_ as if the boar prince were already the boar king, as if they were going to win this war just because the beast had been calmed for now, as if _his father wasn't dead._

How dare she make eyes at the creature who had taken every single person Felix loved and crushed their skin and bones in the name of the Blaiddyd's blundering legacy.

"It's deluded," Felix had spat back at her. "You heard my father's last words, anyway. None of those ghosts it goes on about care about _it_. Glenn was too good to haunt some monster like that. Isn't that what it calls itself, anyway? A _monster_?"

"He's _not_. He _understands_ now."

"He killed my father!" Felix screamed, and Ingrid flinched like he'd drawn his sword.

Ingrid had spoken to him so calmly when Sylvain's brother had died. And that was a brother Sylvain had _hated_ , a brother who even he and Ingrid found unsettling. Not a father who had become yet another corpse Felix could ever prove his worth to.

He hated this. He hated her. He hated _it_.

Hating things and people was how Mercedes found him, hiding from the world in the last place anyone would look for him, or find him even if they _weren’t_ looking: the library.

But she had.

“I thought I might find you here,” she said, a jug in her hand, and she didn’t smile, and Felix started sobbing. “Oh, darling—” pity in her voice, and Felix _craved_ it, craved pity like a kid with a broken toy. He sank to the floor behind the biggest ladder, Mercedes crouched next to him, wrapped him tight in her arms, and he cried into her shoulder until his lungs shook even when he was out of tears.

“Don’t—” he managed to say, “don’t _tell_ her—”

“I won’t.”

“No, not Ingrid, don’t tell—”

“I won’t.”

Mercedes had brought water, not tea. Felix choked on it, cried, coughed, drank.

Felix had feelings, just like anyone else. Why did he always go out of his way to convince everyone he didn’t?


	3. Helping Each Other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A final happy birthday to asnailbee and a happy end to the decade!

~23~

Felix was not a beast.

That had been the boar prince’s role. The boar, with its sharp fang of a Relic, screaming bloody war cries into a battlefield long since cleared. Its reticent behavior now made up for very little of its lust for violence that had so plagued Felix for years.

Felix was not a beast, but he was fighting like one.

He was no prodigy. He was no flashy display of artistry. He was hardly a soldier. He made bodies instead of mistakes, let blood run but not his enemies, carved his sword through foes like a hand through the still water at the monastery.

A mechanical monstrosity’s eyes gleamed, catching him in its ancient sight. Felix roared like an animal in pain and his mind went blank.

The metal _thing_ crumbled to rust and nails behind him. Something stung in Felix’s leg but it didn’t stop him from moving. The next enemy, the next reason for his family’s death. The next swing of his sword, the next fall of a foe.

Felix was not a beast.

Beasts had more sense in their slaughter than emotion.

“Pull back! Your leg!”

The Professor’s voice. Felix leapt onto the horse in front of him, shoving his sword through that spot so much cheap armor failed to protect. Weak armor, made hastily, made for farmers and conscripts.

Screeches of pain didn’t reach beasts’ ears. Only blood reached their skin. The Imperial knight’s lifeforce sprayed Felix’s arms and neck, and he slid off the horse.

His leg did hurt, come to think.

The Professor led them to victory more often than their chastised liege. Oh, for sure, the boar rallied its army simply by being less beastly than it had in the past. But no one, least of all the assassin of an animal, pretended anyone other than the Professor was the tactician. The calm pillar of deadly analytics in the middle of a flaming field of death.

“Pull back, Felix,” the Professor barked at him as the knight’s corpse fell off its horse, the two creatures the only barrier between Felix and the Professor’s healing magic.

Felix tried to reply but only screamed.

“I said _retreat_.”

Felix sank to his knees on the stones of Fhirdiad’s bloodstained streets.

“Get him out of here. To that—yes, the school works. Petra! Bring me over to the—”

The Professor was gone with the flapping of heavy wyvern wings. Soft but strong arms helped Felix up, and he screamed again as adrenaline leeched out of his veins.

His _leg_ …

“I have you, it’s okay, I have you.”

“Annette,” Felix wheezed.

“I have you. Come here.”

A quick burst of white magic lit up his hazy vision, and suddenly, Felix could walk.

“It…it won’t last for long, so we have to move, okay?”

He managed to nod and let Annette walk him to a vaguely-familiar building, only half-scorched. Each limp already drained the spell's effect step by aching step.

"What did I do to it?" he slurred. Annette's voice was pinched when she replied.

"You...won't want to see. You'll be fine, though! I promise, you'll be fine!"

She dumped him rather unceremoniously on a stone bench, and Felix hissed.

"Sorry, I'm sorry!"

"Stop," he bit out. "What about the, the fighting—"

"They're marching on the castle now," Annette told him. She sniffled. "We're winning. I think we're really winning."

"Finally." Felix closed his eyes and let Annette's spells get to work. It was slow going. He'd been healed enough times by enough people he could tell a skilled healer from an unskilled one, and Annette was somewhere in between. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

He didn't know.

"I don't know."

Annette giggled, and it almost sounded genuine. "You told me to stop apologizing."

"I suppose."

Outside, the clangs and screams of battle were already calming. Last Felix had noticed, flames licked most of the stone walls of the buildings. This one seemed to have escaped most of the damage. And now, with his easing pain unfogging his vision spark by glowing spark, Felix recognized their surroundings.

"Is this your school?"

"The School of Sorcery, yeah," Annette mumbled. She prodded at a torn part of his boot, and Felix flinched. She didn't comment this time, only settled into the calm, clinical mindset of a medic and began healing some other injury he didn't remember having. "We're in me and Mercie's room, actually. I...brought you here on instinct, I guess."

Looking around the room was easier than watching his skin stitch closed, so Felix took in the bare surroundings. Very little of the first-floor bedroom spoke of any semblance of personality. An inkwell had spilled its oddly-colored contents on the scorched rug, but the room was otherwise empty of any personable trinkets.

"Someone else has been studying here," Annette said to his unanswered question. "One of the current students." Another sniffle. Her voice had a more watery quality when she added, almost to herself, "I hope they got out okay."

Felix didn't answer.

He didn't even _know_.

Annette poked at a part of his calf, the part that had so worried the Professor. Felix didn't react, despite its vague twinge of discomfort, and she sighed. "Well, that's one less thing to worry about. It's gonna scar, though. Sorry. I didn't learn as fast as I wanted."

"I don't mind," Felix said without thinking. "It'll remind me who healed it."

Annette sucked in a gasp, and he met her wide-eyed stare without thinking. Something choked his throat, made his own eyes itchy with the _concept_ of tears if not tears themselves.

"Annette."

"Felix."

He extended a shaky hand, and she clasped it. He tugged her forward, and—

Jubilant roars of triumph shook the streets. Chills raced up his spine. The name he refused to say echoed through the winding paths of the capital, chanted by its grateful citizens.

_What kind of beast knows of pride?_

"Oh, thank goodness." Annette offer him a shaky smile and squeezed his suddenly-clammy hand. "Let's, uh...we can sit—"

 _Felix was no beast, and neither was their King_.

"We have to see," Felix cut her off. "Annette, please," he added more quietly when she hesitated. "We have to go...see. Please."

"Do you..." She helped him up, but he walked better than he had when they'd first entered. "I can go grab Sylvain. You can ride behind him, on his horse—"

Fhirdiad was aflame, to be sure, but pegasus riders zipped around in safety, no longer afraid of archers, dousing each fire yet to be quenched. From the second-story balcony of the palace stood a hulking figure next to a smaller but no-less confident, no-less powerful warrior. Even from this distance across the moat, Felix could, or thought he could, see the ghost of a smile flash across the haunted man's face.

"No," Felix said even as Sylvain came clip-clopping up. He shook his friend off even before Sylvain extended his gauntlet to help him up. "Let me walk. I can...I can see it myself. I can do that much."

Still, it took Annette's assistance, her arm slung around his waist, to help him take those final steps himself across the bridge. Sylvain dismounted, too, leading his exhausted horse by the reins.

The boar Dimitri had become almost looked like a different King who Felix had grown up knowing.

"He looks really majestic, huh?" Annette asked him, beaming. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Felix could hardly believe he'd heard her over the chanting of the exuberant crowd.

Wings fluttered behind him, and Felix felt Ingrid's callused hand clap on his shoulder.

"Finally's grown up," Sylvain mumbled behind him, gesturing to the balcony, as if they couldn't see, as if no one could _see_. "I'm really proud of him. I'm proud of—"

 _Like a brother_.

Ingrid's voice was choked, too, when she said, "Yes. I'm so...happy, too."

And hearing Ingrid, Ingrid like that, like _that_ when...when another man she loved had nearly been torn from her by a country she'd loved, too...

Felix sniffed, coughed, and buried his face into Annette's shoulder. She yelped, and he stiffened, worried he'd injured her. But she didn't let him worry long; she wrapped her arms around him, rubbing little circles on his shoulders.

Like someone who hadn't known him as an only child incapable of tears.

Like someone who hadn't known he hated being touched. Hated making eye contact. Hated, hated, hated—

 _How do you tell someone something like that_?

~24~

Fortunately, it didn't take long for Felix to heal after the battle at Fhirdiad.

He definitely had been supposed to spend longer in the infirmary, but a sneaking suspicion he'd frustrated Manuela enough and, at a certain point, Mercedes, that he'd been freed early on the condition he follow a regular routine to get his leg muscles limber and loose. Ready to get injured all over again.

Mercedes had suggested morning walks, to stretch his body after spending so long in bed.

Manuela had suggested leaving her alone and snapping his complaints at being _'coddled'_ at someone else.

Felix was happier to follow Manuela's advice than Mercedes's, but he did both anyway.

Annette, as he'd forgotten, also liked to take walks in the morning. Usually with the boar king, and Felix still wasn't ready to deal with...his presence, so most of the time, he whirled around and found another place to walk when he caught sight of bright red hair and fluffy fur.

This morning, however, the bright red hair and fluffy fur made for a much more pleasant view.

Annette was sprawled as elegantly as the word could mean, wiggling a flower at a cat rolling around, batting at the petals. It couldn't have been a comfortable position. Both cat and woman were tucked into a corner by the first-floor dorms. Every time Annette's hand poked too close to the cat's head, it wriggled away. And each time, she'd coo at it, luring it back.

Annette's voice coaxing it back each time was what had drawn Felix's attention in the first place. Maybe he related to the cat more than he wanted to admit.

"Annette," he said when he approached. Less of a limp each morning. It made him quieter, and more likely to startle her.

Which he did.

"Gah!" Annette jolted, and the cat had enough. It skittered away, far out of range of Annette's voice and flower. "Felix! Good morning."

"Good morning." He leaned against the barrel above her, taking in the breeze over the pond. "You're walking less than usual."

"And you're walking more."

He smirked, and her cheeks colored. "My healer's more talented than she thinks."

The color deepened. "You're just flattering me," she mumbled, twisting her fingers together. "I really have a long way to go before I can stitch wounds like Mercie, and don't even get me _started_ on Linhardt—"

" _Don't_ get started on Linhardt," Felix obediently snarled, and Annette shocked him by bursting into peals of musical laughter. It was his turn for heat to rush to his cheeks. "Sorry."

"It's okay. I...like that you like me."

He swallowed. The moment in the bright morning suddenly felt much heavier than it had begun, despite her smiles and cats and flowers and voice.

"Yeah."

She stood up. She met his eye, quirking her head to the side, and he couldn't...Felix couldn't look away, her eyes, the blue...

"I, uh, I kind of...I do like you. Too. A lot, you know?"

Felix forced himself to hold her gaze, despite every instinct in his skin and mind screaming at him to turn away from the emotion painting each feature of her face. "Yeah. I know." His fingers twitched, and for some _stupid_ reason, Annette understood. Her hand shot out and grabbed onto it, sliding palm against palm. He jolted but didn't pull away.

She bopped her head onto his shoulder. "I'm glad you're feeling better."

 _How do you_ —

A sleek, furry body slid along his legs, and Felix jumped in time with his swear. Annette's hand slipped from his grasp.

"It's just the cat!" she chastised him, scooping up the animal and cuddling him close. The little beast yowled and gave her a half-hearted swat but offered no further struggle.

Felix related.

Annette giggled at whatever expression he made. "He kind of looks like you, you know?" Felix rolled his eyes and mumbled something hopefully scathing.

It was a Fraldarian breed. But he didn't want to tell her that.

Unfortunately, Annette seemed to have some awful, supernatural _instinct_. "Hi," she frowned and pitched her voice as deep as her silly, inaccurate impression of his voice always could go, "I'm Felix. I'm grumpy and I hate cuddles unless I pretend to complain."

"I don't complain," he muttered, and her smile only grew.

"I'm Felix the cat, and I'll play with flowers as long as I want until someone sees me," Annette continued, her imitation failing as the laugh in her voice began to conquer it. "I hate when people think I'm having fun."

"I don't _hate_ —"

"My name is Felix, and—"

Felix kissed her.

Annette gasped against his lips, shuddered, and the fact he could _feel_ it, be this close and _feel_ it made the most embarrassing little... _sound_ come out of him.

But whatever it was, Felix couldn't regret it. Because Annette _moaned_ and threw her arms around him like she couldn't help it. Felix the Cat yowled its protests as she dropped it, and Felix felt it stomp on his boots. He couldn't bring himself to care much. It made it easier to grip her waist, her hips, bring her closer, slant his mouth like _this,_ like he remembered from the greenhouse, remembered she liked when he pushed the tip of his tongue against hers and wait for her to push back—

They broke free to breathe.

 _How could he tell her something like this_?

"I..." he tried to say. Annette hugged him, waiting. He squeezed her closer and rested his chin on the top of her head. "I, um..."

And then he laughed.

Directly across from him, perched on a planter outside the greenhouse, sat the black cat. An orange cat hopped up next to it as Felix watched, and began grooming it while the black cat didn't even twitch. But a jet-black tail curled around the orange cat's, and it was so _stupid_ he laughed again.

Annette hummed a curious noise and twisted in his arms. He let her. She rested against his chest, caught sight of the two cuddling cats, and giggled. "Oh, I get it. It's us."

"I'm in love with you," he said into her hair.

"Yeah," Annette said with no hesitation. "I love you, too, Felix."

Felix squeezed his eyes shut, squeezed _her_ , and she squeezed his arms around her.

“My room really is right there, you know. Like, just up these steps. It, uh, still hasn’t changed.”

~25~

Each day to the beginning of a new world felt roughly the same.

Sunrise.

Stretch.

March.

Kill.

Stretch.

March.

Camp.

Sleep.

On repeat.

The only difference was each day, the sun rose brighter. The stretches twisted smoother. The marches moved quicker. The bodies fell faster. The camps grew cheerier. The nightmares came faster.

But.

The sun rose no matter how bright each day shone, either with light or with blood.

Each night, while their soldiers and their enemies fell in the name of glory they all pretended to believe in, their friends and their lovers grieved and handled the nightmares together.

It made it easier, Felix found, holding Annette close in their tent after their victory at Fort Merceus.

Sylvain had only just woken up from a brutal concussion and was now being told he probably wouldn’t be cleared for duty until they arrived at Enbarr.

 _If_ they arrived, no one said anymore.

Sylvain had raised a fuss, to be sure, but Mercedes had surprised everyone, especially Annette, by telling him in a tone as close to snapping as she ever got, if he wanted to fight for his country, he’d take the time to heal for it, too, because dying for it was much more senseless and far more hurtful to those other than himself. And he’d shut up right away, as had the rest of the people bustling about the infirmary tent.

Mercedes wouldn’t talk to anyone right now, and even Annette didn’t know why.

And, as her father had also spent time in the infirmary tent and let her dote on him as much as he seemed capable of standing before his inconvenient guilt swallowed him again, Annette didn’t have someone to confide in, to complain about her best friend, to cry a little.

Sylvain always joked he hated to see girls cry, when Felix knew he reveled in it. It disgusted him.

And it disgusted him even now how good it made him feel that Annette trusted him enough to let him, Felix, see and hear her ugly sobs.

She fell asleep eventually, though. The day had been long and arduous despite its enormous victory. Felix left her prone form on their bedroll and ducked out of the tent.

“Mercedes,” he said as softly as he knew how once he reached her tent. He heard rustling and an even-softer voice reply.

“Felix, I’m sorry, but I don’t feel myself right now.”

 _Yes, you do_ , Felix didn’t say. _You just don’t know how to say it. How to tell someone something like this._

“I just wanted to…” He swallowed those words, rephrased the selfish ones he really wanted to ask. “You can just slide it through the flap, I don’t care, but…can you write something up for me?”

He explained, and Mercedes didn’t answer for so long that, had she been anyone else, Felix would have thought her ignoring him. Then, a scrap of parchment appeared through the gap in the tent flap, held aloft by delicate, trembling fingers.

“Thanks,” he grunted, taking it. The fingers retreated. “And, uh. Mercedes, I—”

“You’re very kind, Felix,” Mercedes interrupted him. It was a clear dismissal. So clear Felix didn’t even argue.

The next bright sunrise, Annette stirred in his arms. Her nose twitched once, then again, and before Felix could decide if he would give in to a weird urge to kiss it, her eyes cracked open. “I smell cookies,” she mumbled against his bare chest, voice cracking with fatigued something else.

“Ugly cookies,” he prepared her, already blushing harder than the dawn could excuse. Annette rolled away out of the furs, letting the brisk air assault his skin. “Don’t crush them.”

“I didn’t, I didn’t! Oh, they’re so _cute_ ,” Annette whispered like the start of a sob. She rolled back inside—more cold air pricking him—and crunched on his almost-burnt cookies like they were a delicacy. “They’re so _cute_.”

Felix tugged her arm, and she scooched forward, forward. Her wet eyelashes against his collarbones made him shake with fear. “I’m getting crumbs on the fur,” she said with her mouth full of tasteless cookies and the beginnings of tears.

“Whatever.”

They didn’t get up until Ingrid shouted at them to hurry and suit up before she told Dimitri they’d defected.

~26~

“You really are a monster in the end,” Felix had told Dimitri, in the privacy of the royal quarters shortly after the coronation. The King had only smiled, though. There had been no bite in Felix’s words.

“You would think of it that way, wouldn’t you, Felix? Or should I say—”

“Enough.” Felix had waved away Dimitri’s poor excuses for jokes. And it still was sort of…sore. “I was going to have to be Duke at some point, anyway.”

“Thank you. Duke Fraldarius.”

“I said enough.” Felix had, however, managed a stiff little nod of his head that could, in the right lighting, be perceived as a bow. “Is that all, Your Beastliness?”

“Yes. That is all.”

And that was how Felix found himself wandering the halls of the Fhirdiad Palace, almost aimless save for the way his feet kept bringing him back to the Fraldarius guest quarters. They were almost the same as he remembered, save with updated décor and much, much quieter.

Each time the heavy door etched with his family’s Crest loomed before him, Felix spun around. But this place felt so unfamiliar now. Not quite lonelier, but something almost like it.

The third time he tried to move away, he found himself at the Dominic quarters instead. And before he lost his nerve and found him staring at those mausoleum doors again, he knocked.

It took too long for Annette to answer. Long enough, in fact, Felix had the sudden, terrible feeling Gilbert was going to open the door, despite the fact Gilbert had been _very_ clear he would be spending his time in the barracks, feeling unworthy of claiming the Dominic rooms himself.

“Hi,” Annette smiled at him.

“Hi.”

She opened the door further, and Felix hardly hesitated before following her inside.

“The boar made me a duke,” he said in lieu of a second, proper greeting.

She nodded and sat on the couch, patting the cushion next to her. “Makes sense, huh?”

“Hm.” He joined her.

Almost dramatically, she keeled over and rested her head on his bicep, too short to lean properly on his shoulder. It made something tight and affectionate swell in his chest. Felix carefully adjusted his arm, letting her snuggle closer, and the tightness only intensified.

She was still in her coronation attire. Far from dressed for bed, much less relaxation.

“Are you feeling okay about it?”

“What does it matter?” Somehow, he couldn’t muster any heat, any emotion to the otherwise harsh sentence.

Felix felt _so much_.

“A lot.”

How could she always _tell_?

Probably because he could always tell with her, too.

“Are you feeling okay about this?”

Felix didn’t gesture, didn’t elaborate. But Annette sighed anyway. “I guess. Yeah. You’re right. It doesn’t matter, either.” She paused. “I don’t know why I expected him to stay here, anyway. It doesn’t—”

He huffed a laugh, and she cut herself off. “Stupid how we fool ourselves into making things _matter_.” He shifted again, and Annette slung one leg over his thigh, nestling into his arms.

“Some things are worse than others,” she mumbled, almost to herself. Felix’s breath hitched, and annoyance, frustration with the world, irritation with it for letting people like her, like him, like _her_ afraid and hating irrational emotion.

“Some things are better, though,” he added, only a little less quietly. Annette tilted her head up to look at him.

Invitation enough, he supposed.

Felix smoothed her hair back with his thumb, and she snuggled into his palm like a cat seeking a sunbeam. “I don’t want to go back,” he said against her lips, because of course he was already close, or maybe she was.

“I don’t want you to, either.”

“Come here.”

Annette clambered into his lap more, higher, throwing her other leg over him, and kissing him like the world had ended five years ago, kissing him like they’d been able to have a proper goodbye.

Felix’s shirt was soft under her hands and nails, but her dress was stiff and uncomfortable. He found himself working at the laces and buttons and clasps before they were properly kissing, even. Annette didn’t help at all, choosing to distract him with butterfly kisses whispering over his cheeks and eyelids and forehead and lips, his mouth, her overdress finally _off_ , her lips, curling the taste of his swallowed curses against her tongue.

“Ooh, that’s way comfier,” she sighed, wriggling in his arms as if she had to shimmy all the comfort back into her limbs. Felix threw his head back and grit his teeth. He kept his hands tight on her hips even when her cruel _wiggling_ had calmed.

She _had_ to know. It wasn’t like they hadn’t…they hadn’t…well, not _quite_ , but…

“Huh? Did I hurt— _oh_!”

Felix had ground into her with one hard, slow roll, hoping he didn’t have to explain. And save his soul, but he didn't. She got the point.

And she started to move on her own.

“Let me,” she told him, her soothing voice somewhat breathless even in its doubtlessly-false bravado. “I—I got it. I can take care of you.”

Felix tried to curse and moaned instead.

“I can—I, I got you.” Her hips stuttered, her fingers fumbled on his shirt.

“Yeah.” Felix helped her. He thought about sniping something teasing, something about how _he_ was being more considerate when she’d barely lifted a finger to help him with her formal gown, but her touch felt too good on his _bare, it was bare_ skin. “I know, I got—”

Annette tugged it all the way off, and the force knocked her backwards on the floor.

“Agh!”

“Annette!” Felix dropped to his knees off the couch, ice sinking in his stomach. She sat up, wincing, and a quick glow of magic lit up the space between them. He watched a bruise vanish from her temple—as did a bruise his _mouth_ had left.

He confessed himself disappointed. And a little angry about it.

Annette giggled and poked his cheek, which made his frown deepen. “What’re _you_ glaring about?” She ran her hand over the side of her neck, like she _knew_ because of course she did. “I really know how to cast healing spells now—”

“You’ll need to,” Felix growling, pushing her back on the thick rug and covering her with his body.

With his mouth.

With his hands.

With his teeth.

“Felix, I really—"

“I love you.”

With his truth, finally, with words he never—

“Let me hear your voice.”

~28~

They hadn’t even made it to the bed, which was an uncomfortable realization when the sun streamed through the stained glass in the morning, bathing them in a colorful brand in the shape of House Dominic’s Crest.

Felix squinted and buried his face in Annette’s neck, hiding from it. She stayed asleep. Out of character. Exhausted.

He grinned against her skin.

He’d almost fallen asleep again when Annette grumbled sleepy little noises and wiggled to get out of his embrace.

“You’re really warm,” she complained.

“Sorry,” Felix apologized— _apologized_. Then he shook the apology out of himself, sitting up and freeing her. “No, I—it’s the sun. We’re right in its—”

Annette shot up, too. “The sun! Oh, no! Oh no, no, did we oversleep?”

He snorted, carding his fingers through his hair. They caught halfway through, and— _fuck_ , he hadn’t untied his hair. Messy and tangled. “Overslept for what? There’s nothing more to…do…”

His voice trailed off.

Nothing to _do_.

Nothing to fight.

Annette tapped his shoulder impatiently. “For my walk! His Majesty’s probably wondering where we are! Oh, no, no, no, this is _so_ embarrassing…” She brought her knees to her chest, rested her arms on top, and groaned a frustrated little scream into them.

 _Adorable_.

“’We?’” Felix asked instead, voice unamused. “If you think I’m bothering to get dressed for the—”

Ah.

They were both very naked.

“It’s a cycle, Felix! First I miss my morning walk, then I…then I stop mid-morning magic practice, then I just go on a _whole_ spiral ‘til I—”

Annette, scrabbling to her feet, was unwittingly determined to change Felix’s pleasant realization. Quick as lightning, he grabbed her arm and pulled her back down to the rug. Her hair was even messier than his, throat and chest spotted with bites and bruises probably matching the shape of his mouth, and thighs red in interesting patterns he’d bet matched roughly with the shape of the designs on the floor.

“Practice magic here,” Felix told her, voice rougher than he’d meant. “Start with white magic first.”

While confusion made Annette frown, some part of her clearly understood, because her skin went pink as the chafe marks on her skin. “Start with—why?”

Felix pulled her down and sealed his mouth over hers in a hot, intense kiss. “Let’s give you some more marks to heal.”

“Oh.” The frown cleared from her face. The pink did not. “Oh. _Oh_.”

“Yeah.” Felix smirked, and she fell back into his lap. “Best way to practice.”

It turned out he made for good magic practice, too.

~29~

Felix assumed his new title with as much ceremony as everyone expected, which was to say not at all.

“You weren’t even going to tell us?” Sylvain complained when he and Mercedes came to visit.

“Nope.”

“We could have come visit. We could have, I don’t know, come down to Fhirdiad, made a whole trip of it—” Sylvain stopped like some brilliant idea had, for the first time in his life, occurred to him. He glared at the wall behind Felix. “ _Ingrid_ ,” he spat venomously. “That…that _traitor_ —”

Mercedes laughed as delicately as only she could while mocking someone. “That’s ‘Her Royal Majesty,’ Sylvain.”

Sylvain scoffed and planted his boots on the coffee table. Mercedes gave him a look too amused than he probably deserved. Felix considered telling her this but couldn’t find even a vaguely respectful way to do so.

There was always something he found so…difficult about giving Mercedes advice, no matter how good. He’d never admit it to anyone, but she really did bring out his _younger brother_ tendencies.

“Ah, of course. Her Royal Majesty. Look, I’m as happy for the adorable royals as anyone—”

“Sylvain, don’t!” Annette tried not to laugh while scolding him and failed.

“—but come on! Spill me some court intrigue! Does the phrase _childhood friends_ mean nothing anymore? If this is the new Kingdom, I don’t know if I want any part of it.”

“Oh, come now,” now Mercedes chided, also failing to hide her grin.

Seriously, these people needed to learn how to handle him, or Sylvain would talk all day.

Felix, however, knew an opportunity when he saw one. He tried to shrug in a casual manner, but Sylvain squinted suspiciously.

So much the better.

“Well, then you don’t _have_ to be part of our wedding. I tried telling Annette it’d be a mistake—”

Sylvain got to his feet so fast the table he’d been resting them on nearly toppled over. “Part of your _what_?” He whirled on Mercedes. “Felix is—” he jerked his thumb at Felix, whose attempts to hide a smirk had finally failed, “—to _Annette_ —”

Mercedes listened politely while Sylvain, after far too many years, forgot what words were. He opened and closed his mouth like an offended fish. Annette openly cackled, drawing his attention and ire. Sylvain pointed a dramatic and accusing finger at Mercedes. “You _knew_.”

Mercedes sipped her tea. The delicate teacup trembled with the breath of her laughter.

“You knew and you didn’t _tell_ me—”

“You didn’t ask, darling.”

Felix leaned back in his chair and watched Sylvain accuse everyone of conspiring against him—Mercedes, Annette, Dedue, Their Traitorous Baby Majesties, Felix, Ashe, himself—for as long as Sylvain seemed capable. Finally, _finally_ , he’d seemed to have enough of everyone’s lack of pity for him and sank back to his seat, shaking his head.

“You sure you’re ready to be a Duke, Felix?” he asked, the glare on his face too affectionate to hold much venom. “Can anyone trust you anymore? Do you even have _feelings_?”

Felix extended his hand, Annette in the seat over took it, and Sylvain rolled his eyes. “Probably,” he said. He didn’t elaborate on which question he was answering.

~One for Luck~

They’d invited so many guests because they had to, not because either of them had really _wanted_ to.

Annette was a social butterfly and could have been thrilled making plans galore to ensure each and every friend had a good time. She’d spent what felt like months going over the weirdest, most specific of details with Mercedes and Dedue and, on one surreal occasion, a bemused newly-named Archbishop.

Felix didn’t care as long the music was good, the food was better, and the day mostly spent with her.

Unfortunately, Dukes had responsibilities, and the responsibilities included figuring out budgets and courtiers and random minor lords from random territories he’d forgotten about and wasn’t allowed to offend. Castle Fraldarius felt almost claustrophobic in the days to come as guests from all over piled in and workers from each district in the Duchy toiled to accommodate them.

When the date of the wedding _finally_ came, Felix felt like he could breathe again.

The exchanging of vows was brief, but it felt much longer. Each word sparkled in Annette’s eyes, each promise glittered in her voice, each prayer glowed on her makeup.

“I love you,” Felix stupidly said instead of repeating the final vow the Archbishop’s monotone had prompted him to say.

They’d _practiced_.

But the Archbishop only coughed a poorly-muffled laugh and said, “Good enough,” and Felix almost let him. Annette, too. She closed her eyes and leaned forward to kiss him.

“No,” he said at the last second. “No, I have to. I…” Annette opened her eyes, grinned, and waited. “I vow to, uh, I vow to stay with you each hour of each day, until our flames of life burn down together and as one.” And, since the Archbishop had given permission, and his friends were going to make fun of him anyway—and already had, teasing him about _swords_ and _marital vows or martial vows_ and _training_ …

“Annette, I love you. Let’s stay together ‘til we die.”

He heard Sylvain give a mock, outraged gasp and couldn’t even be bothered to care.

“May the Goddess grant you peace, love, and prosperity,” the Archbishop said with a grin. He snapped his fingers, and the tiniest, brightest flame hovered in each of his hands. A lesser bishop brought forth a lantern, and both Felix and Annette opened a door on each side. With a wave of the Archbishop’s hands, the flame split in two. Each little ball of magic zipped into the door, and the flames came together as one.

Felix couldn’t help rolling his eyes as he handed it back to the Archbishop. Some nonsense metaphor, he knew, watching the Archbishop setting it on the altar in the Fraldarius cathedral for it to light the room the rest of the night. Something noble and symbolic about the Goddess and the Church bringing couples together under its shelter instead of the couples going through war, hell, pain, and love themselves.

A message.

He and the new Duchess turned their backs on the burning lamp and faced the crowd. The people.

Their cheering friends.

Sylvain getting nudged by Mercedes, meaning he’d probably made a lewd gesture.

Ashe clapping so hard Felix could _hear_ his applause specifically.

Dedue to his side, more solemnly but no less approvingly.

And, right up front, Ingrid and the boar.

King of Beasts and Queen of Nagging.

One of his oldest friends, and Dimitri to her side.

His oldest friends.

“I picked out good sweets,” Annette whispered in his ear as they made their way out of the cathedral—they were the ones permitted first, thankfully, before the crowds celebrating them. “Let’s go eat them all before everyone else.”

Felix scoffed and squeezed her hand at the same time. “Feeding all your hard work to the beasts, I see.”

“Feeding ‘em to the beasties,” Annette agreed, bumping him with her hip.

Some old, faint memory tickled the back of his mind, but Felix didn’t bother pursuing it.

Feeling the present burning in his chest, the first hour of many days, was an emotion he’d rather feel.

**(the end)**


End file.
